Jackie by J. Randy Taraborrelli

Author:J. Randy Taraborrelli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

ONE STEP FORWARD

OCTOBER 20, 1968

Jackie Kennedy was having a bit of a breakdown. “This goddamn thing is awful,” she said as she struggled out of a sleeveless, ivory satin sheath. She said she hated it because it made her look like a bride. She was almost forty, she said, and she’d been married before. She had two children. “I am anything but a blushing bride,” she said.

“But I think it looks—”

“It looks awful,” Jackie said, cutting off the woman standing behind her. She wondered why she’d even packed it.

“But I didn’t—”

“Oh, never mind,” she said.

Once the gown was at her feet, Jackie kicked it into a corner like a cheap rag. Adora Rule went to pick it up. Jackie commanded her to leave it and then pointed to the closet. “The Valentino,” she said.

It was 4:00 p.m. in Greece. In a little more than an hour, Jackie would become Mrs. Aristotle Onassis. She and Adora were tucked away in a small room off a chapel known as Panayitas, or the Little Virgin.

Adora wasn’t even Jackie’s assistant; she was her mother’s. While Jackie had plenty of help in New York, her trip to Greece had been arranged so hastily she didn’t have time to organize everyone’s schedule. She just brought her children’s nanny, Kathy McKeon, to watch over them. Once the family was together in Greece, Janet told Adora to stay with Jackie because, as she put it, “all hands on deck for the sinking of the Titanic.”

Adora went to a garment bag hanging in a small closet, unzipped it, and pulled from it a cream-color, chiffon-and-lace knee-length dress with long bishop sleeves. She handed it to Jackie. “This one?” she asked. Jackie snatched it without answering. As she stepped into the dress and pulled it up, there was a knock on the door. It opened, and a young woman walked into the room. Jackie whirled around to face her. “Kathy, when one knocks on a door,” she said, “one waits until the person on the other side says, ‘Come in, please.’ One doesn’t just barge in like a wild horse into a barn.”

Kathy cringed and gave her an apologetic smile.

“Fine, fine, fine,” Jackie said as she pulled the dress up to her shoulders. She then began to adjust it, all the while gazing into a full-length mirror. “Cigarette,” she said, glancing at Kathy.

Kathy walked to Jackie’s large purse on a card table, took a Salem from a pack, and nervously inserted it into a silver cigarette holder. She lit it, took a quick puff, and handed it to Jackie. As Jackie took a drag, she asked about the children. Kathy said they were fine and waiting outside the church for her. After sharing a look with Adora, Kathy bowed out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Jackie put the cigarette down on an ashtray and began to adjust the bishop sleeves on the dress. “What do you think?” she asked Adora.

“I think it looks good,” she said.

She leaned

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